Taking care of big money. Houses first act.

[SoCal Deek]

1 minute ago, redtail hawk said:

how do u implement a progressive sales tax?  by their nature, sales taxes are regressive.  For example, a family with an income of $50000 likely spends every penny and is taxed on every penny.  A family making $500000 may only spend $200000.  So taxes of the low earner will be on 100% of his income while that of the high earner on 40%.

Ugh! I’m not proposing a progressive sales tax! My point is you pay a flat tax on everything you buy and nobody blinks and eye and no auditing is required. It can be done, and is. In an ideal world I’d love to see flat income tax, but I realize many would want some progressiveness in it, so I’m willing to compromise there. Make sense? 

[Joe Ferguson forever]

6 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Ugh! I’m not proposing a progressive sales tax! My point is you pay a flat tax on everything you buy and nobody blinks and eye and no auditing is required. It can be done, and is. In an ideal world I’d love to see flat income tax, but I realize many would want some progressiveness in it, so I’m willing to compromise there. Make sense? 

makes sense but what would the mechanism be.  People carry cards that say "sales tax 3%" or "sales tax 7%" (based on income) to stores when buying items?  Yes, they could exempt the first $30000 but would that number be different for high earners?  Lower earners are going to pay more in tax (as a percentage) almost always because they have less discretionary income.  They're spending it all on necessities.

Edited January 12, 2023 by redtail hawk

[Doc]

1 hour ago, The Frankish Reich said:

There’s so much misinformation here about the IRS going after low earners. Here’s the stats:

 

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-are-the-odds-being-audited.html

 

Other than the 8.9% audit rate for reported zero AGI filers* the chances of being audited never exceeded 0.6% all the way up to $500,000 declared AGI. And then only a 1.1% chance up to a reported $1.0 million AGI. Over TEN MILLION dollars in reported AGI? Only an 8.6 percent chance of being audited. 
We largely have an honor system when it comes to tax filing. As a great Republican once said, “trust but verify.” And verify = audit in the tax world. 

*so why the high rate for zero AGI reporters? Well, they’re filing tax returns showing zero AGI, so they’re seeking big refunds, often despite big earnings or big 1099s. So by definition they are claiming big “adjustments” (that’s what the “A” stands for) to their Gross Income. And that often warrants a closer look. Even so, it’s still under ten percent of these zero declared AGI filers who got audited. 

 

 

Going after low earners doesn't make sense anyway you look at it, forget the numbers.  But those numbers prove against it.

[Tommy Callahan]

2 minutes ago, Doc said:

 

Going after low earners doesn't make sense anyway you look at it, forget the numbers.  But those numbers prove against it.

Is it about catching people with fraud on taxes? or finding the NON reported income.

 

IF they are forcing electronic transaction companies to report accounts with yearly 600 dollars worth of payments, that's not for the big boys. that's the gig class. the folks that avoid traditional banking and what not. then if you don't claim it, your gonna get investigated.

 

Big boys have accountants to take the fall if anything is found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Doc]

4 minutes ago, Chris farley said:

Is it about catching people with fraud on taxes? or finding the NON reported income.

 

IF they are forcing electronic transaction companies to report accounts with yearly 600 dollars worth of payments, that's not for the big boys. that's the gig class. the folks that avoid traditional banking and what not. then if you don't claim it, your gonna get investigated.

 

Big boys have accountants to take the fall if anything is found.

 

It's the "low earners" who have businesses where they don't report income and claim to be poor.  I've seen many people like that at my surgery center who are on Medicaid but have nice clothes and cars.

[Tommy Callahan]

8 minutes ago, Doc said:

 

It's the "low earners" who have businesses where they don't report income and claim to be poor.  I've seen many people like that at my surgery center who are on Medicaid but have nice clothes and cars.

I agree. 

its like the food stamp buying expensive groceries meme. If folks are actually poor, they are not wasting those.  

 

Its the ones that have unreported income, and dont need that splurge and make it look bad

 

 

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

7 hours ago, redtail hawk said:

makes sense but what would the mechanism be.  People carry cards that say "sales tax 3%" or "sales tax 7%" (based on income) to stores when buying items?  Yes, they could exempt the first $30000 but would that number be different for high earners?  Lower earners are going to pay more in tax (as a percentage) almost always because they have less discretionary income.  They're spending it all on necessities.

For the love of everything holy! I’m not talking about a progressive sales tax! My point was that you currently pay a flat tax that we call a sales tax, and pretty much nobody ever even thinks about or has the ability to cheat on it. Nobody complains…at least not very much…they just pay it. I’d love to see the same thing for income tax. Get rid of all the deductions and simplify the entire mess. But the difference will be that just like sales tax EVERYONE will pay it! Let’s see how many people vote to raise that tax then. Got it? 

[Joe Ferguson forever]

20 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

For the love of everything holy! I’m not talking about a progressive sales tax! My point was that you currently pay a flat tax that we call a sales tax, and pretty much nobody ever even thinks about or has the ability to cheat on it. Nobody complains…at least not very much…they just pay it. I’d love to see the same thing for income tax. Get rid of all the deductions and simplify the entire mess. But the difference will be that just like sales tax EVERYONE will pay it! Let’s see how many people vote to raise that tax then. Got it? 

It's regressive tax. low earners pay more as a percentage of income.  Simple as that.  https://www.accuratetax.com/blog/regressive-sales-tax-infographic/

Edited January 12, 2023 by redtail hawk

[SoCal Deek]

3 hours ago, redtail hawk said:

It's regressive tax. low earners pay more as a percentage of income.  Simple as that.  https://www.accuratetax.com/blog/regressive-sales-tax-infographic/

Oh come on! You really have to be kidding me. Now you want to get rid of sales tax? That’s a new one. 
 

But I’ll play your lunatic leftist game. Let’s have everyone pay the same percentage of their income in taxes. Happy now? 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

4 hours ago, redtail hawk said:

It's regressive tax. low earners pay more as a percentage of income.  Simple as that.  https://www.accuratetax.com/blog/regressive-sales-tax-infographic/

I’ve seen this model in practice in Europe- sales tax is applied to luxuries like restaurants and booze and cigarettes and travel entertainment etc. they don’t tax basic needs like groceries staples and kids clothing. 
 

it makes a ton of sense. Yes true it means poorer people living beyond their means could be paying proportionally higher percentage taxes, or they just live within their means and don’t.  

[Joe Ferguson forever]

1 minute ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

I’ve seen this model in practice in Europe- sales tax is applied to luxuries like restaurants and booze and cigarettes and travel entertainment etc. they don’t tax basic needs like groceries staples and kids clothing. 
 

it makes a ton of sense. Yes true it means poorer people living beyond their means could be paying proportionally higher percentage taxes, or they just live within their means and don’t.  

different model but definitely better.  But what European country doesn't have income tax?

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

3 minutes ago, redtail hawk said:

different model but definitely better.  But what European country doesn't have income tax?

Didn’t remember no income tax just that income tax was allegedly lower and vat consumption tax was the biggest receipt.  I didn’t make enough money there at the time to remember the income tax rules but I feel like it was better than us .  

 

https://taxfoundation.org/consumption-taxes-in-europe-2020/

[Joe Ferguson forever]

3 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

Oh come on! You really have to be kidding me. Now you want to get rid of sales tax? That’s a new one. 
 

But I’ll play your lunatic leftist game. Let’s have everyone pay the same percentage of their income in taxes. Happy now? 

That's flat tax.  You seem to have difficulty with the words "regressive" and "progressive" in regards to taxation.

[The Frankish Reich]

23 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

Ugh! I’m not proposing a progressive sales tax! My point is you pay a flat tax on everything you buy and nobody blinks and eye and no auditing is required. It can be done, and is. In an ideal world I’d love to see flat income tax, but I realize many would want some progressiveness in it, so I’m willing to compromise there. Make sense? 

We have a lot of transfer/welfare programs in America. Most are stupidly inefficient. 
You have a VAT, and then you consolidate those welfare programs into something like a minimum income transfer payment in lieu of food stamps, etc. I’m not pretending it’s simple to do, but you can protect those in the bottom quintile while moving away from the progressive and intrusive income tax. 
How is it that the only two politicians in my lifetime who have gotten traction with a true taxation reform system are fringey Republicans Steve Forbes and Herman Cain? Is there no one out there who’s interested in looking at our system as a whole, comparing it to those of other developed countries, and starting from scratch?

[Tommy Callahan]

We have a lot of transfer/welfare programs in America. Most are stupidly inefficient.

 

I would argue its that they treat those as jobs programs and then ensure loyal voters. Who is going to vote for a party that wants to get rid of the beurocracy.

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

2 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

We have a lot of transfer/welfare programs in America. Most are stupidly inefficient. 
You have a VAT, and then you consolidate those welfare programs into something like a minimum income transfer payment in lieu of food stamps, etc. I’m not pretending it’s simple to do, but you can protect those in the bottom quintile while moving away from the progressive and intrusive income tax. 
How is it that the only two politicians in my lifetime who have gotten traction with a true taxation reform system are fringey Republicans Steve Forbes and Herman Cain? Is there no one out there who’s interested in looking at our system as a whole, comparing it to those of other developed countries, and starting from scratch?

I agree Frank. We all know the reasons why the politicians don’t want to simplify things. What I can never figure out is why any taxpayer would argue against it. Yes, I know, some are afraid it would benefit upper earners, but they’re looking at it aa if everything else would stay the same. It wouldn’t. Nobody really cares what their gross pay is. You only care what your net pay is. A simple computer program could adjust everyone’s income in a single tax year. Then, you start all over with everyone paying into the system at the same percentage regardless of the source from which your income was generated. 

[The Frankish Reich]

Larry Summers explains it:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/16/republicans-house-irs-tax-service/

 

Paywalled, so here's a couple clips:

 

In past work, we have shown that an investment in the IRS similar in size to that of the Inflation Reduction Act would generate more than $1 trillion in additional tax revenue over a decade by reducing the “tax gap” — the difference between owed and paid taxes. But this is, in fact, conservative, as recent research has emphasized a point left out of our calculation: Successful audit activity raises future collections from taxpayers who face enforcement activity. If their home office deduction is disallowed once, taxpayers do not attempt the same deduction again.

 

Reasonable people can disagree about how progressive the tax code should be. But we cannot see any logical argument rules that operate differently for certain taxpayers. Most Americans have most of their tax liability automatically withheld and earn income in ways that are reported directly to the IRS — for example, interest income on the 1099-INT or dividend income on the 1099-DIV. But the most privileged Americans accrue income in opaque ways that are not subject to this type of reporting and, therefore, are a source of a large percentage of the tax gap.

 

The whole thing is worth reading. Summers is no fool, and no puppet of any administration or agenda - he did manage to get himself fired as Dean at Harvard for saying some unwoke things. He's not offering a spirited defense of our system of taxation; he's just stating the simple fact that if this is our system, it ought to work fairly across persons from all income categories and ways of generating income. Right now, it doesn't.

[SoCal Deek]

3 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Larry Summers explains it:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/16/republicans-house-irs-tax-service/

 

Paywalled, so here's a couple clips:

 

In past work, we have shown that an investment in the IRS similar in size to that of the Inflation Reduction Act would generate more than $1 trillion in additional tax revenue over a decade by reducing the “tax gap” — the difference between owed and paid taxes. But this is, in fact, conservative, as recent research has emphasized a point left out of our calculation: Successful audit activity raises future collections from taxpayers who face enforcement activity. If their home office deduction is disallowed once, taxpayers do not attempt the same deduction again.

 

Reasonable people can disagree about how progressive the tax code should be. But we cannot see any logical argument rules that operate differently for certain taxpayers. Most Americans have most of their tax liability automatically withheld and earn income in ways that are reported directly to the IRS — for example, interest income on the 1099-INT or dividend income on the 1099-DIV. But the most privileged Americans accrue income in opaque ways that are not subject to this type of reporting and, therefore, are a source of a large percentage of the tax gap.

 

The whole thing is worth reading. Summers is no fool, and no puppet of any administration or agenda - he did manage to get himself fired as Dean at Harvard for saying some unwoke things. He's not offering a spirited defense of our system of taxation; he's just stating the simple fact that if this is our system, it ought to work fairly across persons from all income categories and ways of generating income. Right now, it doesn't.

Summers is making a gross generalization there, and definitely showing his age. I'd hazard to guess that the higher percentage of people not reporting their income are not the privileged folks he remembers from the 80's. It's actually the younger generation independent entrepreneurs working on a digital cash basis.  

[Tiberius]

 

[Doc]

Oooooh, he called them racist.  That's new...